Malta's History in Brief

Maltese history is a colourful catalogue of the many geographic cultural influences, and anyone who goes 'wreck diving', a key sport here off the Maltese shores is spoilt for choice. The Phoenicians were here, the ancient Greeks and obviously the Romans. Then the Arab conquest, pushed back by Imperial Spain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilys, with Venetian traders popping in and exerting their soft power.

A crucial moment came when the Moslem Turks expelled the crusading Knights from Rhodes and the Pope brokered a deal with the King of Spain to give them Malta, for the peppercorn rent of just one Maltese Falcon a year. The Knights built what is now the Three Cities. The Turks ran after the Knights and gave siege in 1565 which was heroically repulsed. The Knights built Valletta, named after the Knights' Grand Master Jean de Valette who commissioned the city in 1566.

The Knights ruled until Napoleon tipped up, giving the Island a brief French interregnum, until the Islanders asked the British to liberate them. The British realized the strategic importance of the island and stayed. Malta became a crown colony in 1814 and remained one until 1964. Malta was an enormous British naval base, and the Royal navy only left in 1979.

Malta at one stage requested to become part of the United Kingdom but was turned down by Westminster. A fact that still stings for some Maltese who felt rejected by the Mother Country.

A second crucial event was the second great siege when the Axis powers attacked during the second world war. Again, the islanders endured terrible conditions but survived.